I looked and cried: "Oh—oh! Mrs. Bradshaw, that girl doesn't look a bit like me—she's ever so much nicer!"
In that lesson on making-up was the beginning and the ending of my theatrical instruction. What I have learned since then has been by observation, study, and direct inquiry—but never by instruction, either free or paid for.
Now, while I was engaged to go on with the crowd, fate willed after all that I should have an independent entrance for my first appearance on the stage. The matter would be too trivial to mention were it not for the influence it had upon my future. One act of the play represented the back of a stage during a performance. The scenes were turned around with their unpainted sides to the public. The scene-shifters and gas-men were standing about—everything was going wrong. The manager was giving orders wildly, and then a dancer was late. She was called frantically and finally when she appeared on the run, the manager caught her by the shoulders, rushed her across the stage and fairly pitched her on the imaginary stage—to the great amusement of the audience.
The tallest and prettiest girl in the ballet had been picked out to do this bit of work, and she had been rehearsed and rehearsed as if she were preparing for the balcony scene of "Romeo and Juliet"; and day after day the stage-manager would groan: "Can't you run? Did you never run? Imagine the house a-fire and that you are running for your life!"
At last, on that opening night, we were all gathered ready for our first entrance and dance, which followed a few moments after the incident I have described. The tall girl had a queer look on her face as she stood in her place—her cue came, but she never moved.
I heard the rushing footsteps of the stage-manager: "That's you!" he shouted; "go on! go on, run!"
Run? She seemed to have grown fast to the floor. We heard the angry aside of the actor on the stage: "Send someone on here—for Heaven's sake!"
"Are you going on?" cried the frantic prompter.
She dropped her arms limply at her sides and whispered: "I—I—c-a-n-t!"
He turned, and as he ran his imploring eye over the line of faces, each girl shrank back from it. He reached me—I had no fear, and he saw it. "Can you go on there?" he cried. I nodded. "Then for God's sake go!"